


This City Never Sleeps

by cherrytisane



Category: Tokyo Ghoul
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe, Blood and Gore, Canon-Typical Violence, Eventual Romance, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Torture, M/M, Other, Protectiveness, Science Fiction, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-05-17
Updated: 2015-07-14
Packaged: 2018-03-30 23:06:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,192
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3955342
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cherrytisane/pseuds/cherrytisane
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>[AU] Hide was destined to join the CCG. At least, that was the destiny that was chosen for him the day of his birth. His bright future comes crashing down the moment he decides to give shelter to an injured ghoul on a rainy night.  Like the ripples on a pond, their meeting changes the flow of events that will alter the very fabric of their world.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Monkey See, Monkey Do

**Author's Note:**

> Hello Everyone!!!! :D
> 
> I watched the first episode of Number Six and this was born! :)  
> It won't have anything to do with the storyline of that series, however.  
> I hope you enjoy, and please let me know what you think :)
> 
> This is Un-Beta'd, so I apologise for any mistakes.

A spotlight moves across the ground like a death ray, searching left and right among the trees. It curls through the darkened leaves and ignites the shadows with its unwavering gaze. The whirrs of a helicopter echoes ominously in the distance, as the sounds of sirens spilt the air with their harrowing cry.

 “All staff evacuate the facility immediately. I repeat. All staff evacuate the facility immediately. A state of emergency has been declared. All military personnel report to Gate Three for briefing. This is not a drill.”

A figure is silhouetted by the lights of an approaching vehicle. They are outside of 'Gate Three' infront of a building with looming fences that have curling barbed wire looped around the top of the twisted steel. It’s some sort of prison or research facility, where the alarm wailing hails as emergency lights flash on and off, blinking like demons eyes in the night. They observe with great disdain as armor-clad guards drag corpses and place them into black bags, zipping them up as blood pools outwards underneath them.

 The person raises a megaphone with one hand, keeping the other buried in their pocket. They address the crowd of soldiers that has gathered, “As of 2200, Research Subject: Rinkaku and Test Subject: Chimera have escaped from their holding cells. If they make it to the perimeter, terminate them. These are not children gentlemen, they are monsters. Monsters who will not hesitate to kill you, so I expect you to return the favour.  The ghouls are not allowed to breach The Ward.”   

“Kill Order confirmed, sir!” 

“I want the security in the 20th ward alerted. I want the place on lockdown.” 

The soldiers charge off into the woods, heavy boots hitting the surface of the ground like a thundering herd. Vehicle’s roar awake, the sounds of their engines blanketing the sirens for a few brief moments as their lights flicker on. They speed off into the undergrowth.  

A sinister smile breaks over the mysterious figures face, eyes twinkling with mirth in the shadows.

_*   *   *_

_The escape was not my idea._   __

The sun sets over a meadow filled with gleaming white flowers. Tendrils of crimson light are bleeding over the field, painting the flowers with eerie shadows and turning them into an alluring blood-red. A dark wall of pine stretches spindling limbs into the crisp air, leaves threading into the grey, turbulent clouds that loom overhead, whipping this way and that with the cold wind. For children, no older than twelve, they move fast. Terrifyingly so in fact, bare feet moving in smooth, fluid motions and as they run across the meadow, crushing flora in their wake.

The vast wedges of tree roots snake out of the ground like veins, curving in knots and sinking deep into the damp earth below. Pine needles that run like a mighty green river crush under their feet, releasing wisps of fragrance into the air as their breaths are exerted from their lungs. Profound and controlled.

The children crawl under the safety of a rotted, hollowed out log as the beam sweeps the trees nearby their position. Chimera breathes in the smell of damp wood and moulded earth, as the light flares up the dew sitting on a spider’s web, causing the water to look like twinkling diamonds. Earthworms crawl around his fingers, wriggling through the soft skin between, as the spotlight sweeps over again. He unconsciously digs his bruised fingers into the earth, feeling the small stones and wood chips dig into the soft bed of his fingernails. 

_It was my sister who said we had to leave.  She saved my life..._

Next to him, Rinkaku breathes out a hollowed laugh, the kakugan in her eyes glowing faintly. There are twigs twisted into the matted violet of her hair as a trickle of blood flows down her temple. It gathers at her chin before falling to the flimsy hospital gowns they’re wearing. 

Chimera studies with her with silvery eyes intently as a group of Humvees slash through the trees, their engines whining, ridden by armoured soldiers wearing the eerie green of night vision goggles. The rifles strapped onto their backs have built in RC scanners that probe the surrounding area with red neon beams, moving in repetitive motions over the trees and through the leaves.  

Rinkaku's skin is silky and pale, long hair that falls across her shoulders and the small of her back like a waterfall. Her face is heart-shaped with a pouting mouth. She would have been impossibly beautiful if it had not been for the remnants of her last meal smeared bloodily across her lips.  

Compared to her, Chimera feels like a washed out imitation.  

 “I got it,” she suddenly announces, flashing him a broad grin. The worms are crawling through her toes and the nubs of her spine are pressed painfully against the wood behind her. 

“You’ll be ‘Kaneki’! It means ‘golden tree?’ Do you like it?” 

She looks at his surprised face with her sparkling crimson eyes and laughs lightly. He could smell the blood beneath her nails and feel the scream of her victims reverberating within her cold flesh. 

“I like it,” he agrees, with a small nod.

Rinkaku points at her wrist and taps the back of her hand a few times before making a slashing sign with her hand. _Let’s move out_ , she mouths. Kaneki nods sullenly, ignoring a cold, hollowing feeling in his stomach. He idly scratches at the bandages that surround his lower back.

 _She gave me a name._  

The headlights of the Humvees slash through the darkness as they move on by, taking the light with them. Kaneki looks to Rinkaku, who nods, taking in deep and controlled breaths. She pauses for a moment and then beckons at something right at the back of the tree, before saying "This way!”  

They crawl out of their rotted hiding place and begin to run again, the forest floor flowing beneath their feet. The stippled light glances across Kaneki’s skin casting deep dark shadows around the slate grey of his eyes, as he tentatively runs across the earth.  The ground seems to creak slightly beneath his foot, rocks rubbing against the rough skin of tree roots that penetrate this place like monsters.

A red light floats over Kaneki’s chest, and his eyes widen in fear. Without thinking, he leaps, grabbing onto Rinkaku’s shoulders to pull her to the ground as a barrage bullets fire where the heads once were. She growls, the sclera of her eyes turning a dark pitch back as she scrambles from the ground with animalistic fever, and she leaps at the soldier and tears him limb from limb.

Kaneki watches the shadows dance on the ground near his hands as what appears to be vines erupt from his sisters back and dislodge the persons head from their body. The sound of something heavily slumping to ground fills the air, followed by a sickening crack as an arm is torn from its socket.

 “Eat, Kaneki.” She commands, eyes looking dreamily over the limb as spurts of blood fall from the torn flesh. It makes awful squelching noises as it hits the ground. 

“I don’t want to.” 

“You want to grow big and strong, right?” She gives a smile, the sort you might see from a snake before it bites you: slow and infinitely dangerous. Her inky red eyes impossibly dark and somewhat devouring. 

 “I don’t want to eat it…” Kaneki crosses his arms over his chest, inky hair shielding his face from her displeased glare. His arms still firmly crossed, nails digging into the forefront of his elbows, riling the skin and digging it up, as he says, “Please, don’t make me eat it. I’m begging you.” 

“You want to make your big sister proud, don’t you?” She breathes slowly out and his blood stills, “Make me proud, Kaneki. It’s yummy, I promise. Would I lie to you?” 

Her words reside in an odd tangy aftertaste of bitter resentment and anger- briefly he tries to swallow it down. Kaneki removes his arms from his body and lifts his face.  Rinkaku smiles at his expression:  a self-defeating look that slips down the sliding slope into nothingness and despair. Kaneki tentatively reaches out and grabs the limb from her blood-soaked, waiting hands. He lets a few tears fall as he savagely rips into the flesh and swallows its tenderness down his throat in painful gulps.

 She smiles psychotically at him, “Good little brother. You’ve made big sister really happy!” 

The wounds of Kaneki’s back heal, stitching together until no trace of the incisions remain and the cold feeling in his stomach disappears.  For some unknown reason, it makes his body  _thrum_  with pleasure. 

 The helicopter whirls above somewhere in the distance. 

 “Let’s go!” she commands.

Kaneki gets to his feet, wiping the remnants of his meal off his face with the back of his hand, and they leave. The soldier’s corpse grows cold in the night air. 

Kaneki and Rinkaku sprint through the trees as their eyes close in on a chain link fence, topped with sharp barbed wire. Rinkaku leaps with grace over the top, limbs flowing beautifully through the air, and falling to the ground on the tips of her toes with the finesse of a ballerina.  She turns around, pirouetting on one foot, and links her fingers through the fence and encourages Kaneki to jump as well.

 _I never even got the chance to thank her._  

He hesitates, heels digging into the ground.

His mind travels back seconds, minutes, hours, days to a few months ago to a familiar scene when a cold drizzle had been spattering on the white windowsill of a cage. It feels like he's dreaming, sitting in a disjointed haze of pain on the blood stained linoleum, cuddled into the corner of conjoining walls.

The harsh material of leather and metal is biting ruthlessly into the raw skin of his wrist and ankles. The blood is clotting against his marble skin, staining a brown sticky mess across his arms and legs. It resides in a jelly-like substance at his toes.

There is almost absolute silence, the machine that whirs sporadically is the only source of noise, but his mismatched eyes stay locked on the cage door, waiting, calculating and daring.

There's the sound of slight pressure against his cage. It does nothing for his fragile psyche that is beginning to break under drug-induced trance, and he's fears something bad will happen if that door was to open.

Fingers had crawled through the gaps in the metal, hooking around the holes that reside and a curious face presses against the bars of his cage. A girl blinks at him with vibrant violet eyes that flicker to a dark red with the stippling of the light.

“You smell like me, why?” she tilts her head, causing strands of brightly coloured hair to fall across her face, her nose crinkling as she inhales.

“I don’t know….” He whimpers, curling in on himself, away from the inquisitive stare, “I don’t know why. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t cry.” She soothes, and her mouth breaks open as she gasps, “You must be my brother!”

He stops whimpering and uncurls himself to face her with wide, unblinking eyes.

“That’s why you smell like me!” she giggles, flashing him a beautiful serene smile that has him captivated and enslaved to her charm. “You can call me Rize.”

Her voice snaps him back into the present, “Kaneki! **_Hurry up!”_**

He has to shake his head a few times to dislodge the memories that were clouding his vision. To his right, he spots a fallen tree near the edge of the fence and decides to use its decaying body to his leverage. Kaneki climbs the greying bark and runs out along a long, spindly limb. He leaps out into space and plants his hands on the top row of the wire. The cold metal biting unforgiving into the soft skin of his hands as he uses the muscles of his abdomen to lean forward in some sort of gymnasts vault over the top. 

He doesn’t notice the soldiers until it’s too late.

A dart of a Taser gun connects to the skin of his back, and he lights up, convulsing as a thousand pin-pricks of pain flow down his nerves. It causes a scream to erupt from the bottom of his lungs. His arm twists and turns, tangling into the corrugated iron of the barbed wire that shears into his flesh with glee. Two more soldiers appear from the shadows like nightmares, firing Taser darts into the supple flesh of his legs, and arms, seemingly connecting to the bone. Kaneki goes down,  brilliant flashes of white stars go sporadic before his eyes as he falls to the ground.  His hands pulling up clods or dirt and grass as they dig into the ground to prevent his body from unwillingly making sporadic snow angels. 

Rize stares in horror as Kaneki is set upon by the human wolves ** _,_** she screams ** _“Leave him alone!”_**

She leaps back over the fence, spiralling in an untamed movement, red vines ripping out of the skin of her back and shredding the flimsy material that covers her body into ribbons. Her body is bare, collar bones sticking out sharply, contoured by the waning moonlight as she attacks. She tackles the first soldier from the side, bringing their body hard to the ground as her rinkaku slices through another’s stomach, and spins, scrambling their insides. With a twisted smile, she twists the soldiers head beneath her fingers until it cracks, viscera and muscle spilling out of the bone like an egg from its shell. Laughing shrilly, she curves her embedded rinkaku and pulls herself forward, stabbing her dirty fingers into the soldier’s eye sockets. She grins sardonically as she pulls the eyes out and lovingly caresses the organs with her tongue. 

“Delicious.” The other soldiers are scrambling for their weapons, almost moving in slow motion. She turns to them, spine curved and animalistic as she growls, deep and echoing, “You know, I hate it when people interrupt me during a meal.” 

 Rize tears apart the soldiers with joy, enjoying taunting them and gutting them with her rinkaku. She is being showered with hot and sticky blood, but she doesn't care as she was too absorbed by horrible screams. Gut wrenching cries fill the air that sends the birds flapping from the trees in terror all around them. Their squawking cloaks the area with an ominous hair. It sends jolts of snapping electricity across her skin. She had stabs another soldier four times through their chest that had turned to run and they fall with a heavy 'slump' to the ground, crumbling like sand under water. 

 “Such a small toy for such a big boy. I bet you love playing house.”

She feasts on a soldier, breaking his ribcage open with her teeth as he screams, and screams as she eats him alive. She seems disappointed when their cries die out into silence, and she scoffs with disgust, “I’m not going to play with you anymore.”

Kaneki was regaining consciousness and waited despite his brain and senses screaming at him to run. He stayed motionless as if carved from marble, not daring to move until it was almost too late.

A soldier sneaks up on Rize, and Kaneki, who has recovered, attacks.

He catches the soldier with a roundhouse blow that glances across their nose. He then instinctively backs away as fast as he can, body lowering down the ground, shoulders raised, causing his hands to come into play with his movement as much as his feet do. His eyes are fiercely alert, for one that had been rendered immobile so shortly before. Adrenalin pumping like a drug through his blood, as he licks his lips to taste a little metallic blood and the salt of sweat. He watches the soldier intently.

Something from behind him causes alarm bells to ring like thunder inside his mind, primal instinct in its most refined form-

_Behind you_

\- And he ducks, falling flat onto his palms as a soldier aims a blow for the space that his head had been occupying.

There was a noise of the blade ripping through muscle and scraping bone as Kaneki threw himself back away from the knife-edge. He leant to one side like an injured animal, his other hand grasping at his injury while his other arm lay motionless at his side.

The lunge creates a moment of weakness: the soldier hadn't been expecting him to charge. Kaneki surges forwards, his arms sickeningly snapping back into place as if had never been wounded and he rushes skywards. He grips the soldiers wrists, slamming feet so hard into their chest cavity that bone crushes against flesh. The soldier falls to the ground, instantly dead, eyes widened permanently in shock and disbelief.

 He dashes forwards towards the other soldier, feinting right, left, then right again. Playing with distraction. Kaneki tackles the soldier from the side in a blurring shape and person hits the ground and struggles to raise the weapon...seeming to go into slow motion as Kaneki knocks the weapon cartwheeling out of their hands. He then bites into to wrist of the soldier who screams, and tears so the limb renders immobile.

For an instant, Rize looks at him, and her eyes flash suddenly with an intense… something, almost as if she was genuinely proud of him before everything goes still again and there's only the dull throbbing of his heart.

Then that cold, condescending smile forms all the way across the beautiful flush of Rize’s lips, and she laughs. A high, abrupt sound that gets silenced as quickly as it started. He saw Rize standing unsteadily, her knees caving in underneath her, hand moving to her neck as she removed a long metal dart from her skin.

Kaneki saw Rize's eyes lose focus, an expression of surprise still etched across her face as her body went limp, crashing to the ground like a rag doll. The silence seemed to spiral sickeningly, Kaneki breathed out, although there appeared to be no breath in his lungs. His skin feeling oddly clammy and wet, although he knew he couldn't possibly be sweating while all around him nothing stirred.

Kaneki looks up to see soldiers running toward the fence.  Some of them kneel, raising their rifles, as red dots flutter all over his body.  The spotlight finds the and the dirt explodes all around them as the bullets hit the ground from an aerial strike.

Fear reared up in Kaneki’s heart like an ugly snake, never quite taking his eyes from the soldiers he turns frantically to his sister, not knowing what to do as panic consumes him.  She's bent on hands and knees, twitching like some kind of sick animal and he can see the lines on her throat that he's sure will bruise as her veins rise to the surface,

 _“Run, little brother,”_ Rize screams as she throws herself up from the ground, the vines spreading out behind her like a crimson flower. The bullets tear through the vines that seem to be rapidly decaying and falling to the ground in clumps of black dust. 

“Not without you.” Kaneki's voice cracks, and pain, physical pain and meaning is communicated in each vocal movement and syllable; breathless and body shivering.

“Do as I say!” she screams at him in an authority that only older siblings seem to have. Her veins are turning a sickly black colour, and she coughs, once, twice, as an inky liquid erupts from her mouth.

 “No!” Kaneki shouts, guttural and desperate. He watches as a soldier moves and Rize didn't seem to see them. The blow connects with her spine, and she falls, her own hands only just stopping her from hitting the ground.

  ** _“Rize!”_**

 “I’ll find you. Now go!”

An arm circles around her neck, driving her vision sharply upwards and she gasps and gags for air as the muscle in her throat is compressed. She claws at the arm with her fingers, dragging rivulets of flesh out from the soldier, as the rest of the entourage descend. They yank her chin painfully up into the air and when she makes eye contact, she screams at the soldier. Her face twisted and defiant, that radiates anger as she screams her unrelenting willpower.

 The violent explosion inside those crimson, intoxicating inky eyes wash over Kaneki like a thunderstorm. The look jars in his mind and he feel like the hunted facing the predator again, and fear strikes him into action. His body seems to drip adrenaline and his insides feel slightly lucid, and Rize glaring at him with such hostile intent that Kaneki fights the urge to cry. He finds himself thinking how beautiful Rize looks when she's angry

  ** _“Go!”_** her lip draws back in a savage snarl as she hisses at Kaneki, who reacts as if he's been struck. The words echo around forest canopies, curling and moulding into the cracks and crevices of every tree and stone.

 Kaneki can't decide whether the emotion sprawling through his gut is anger or fear as he makes the tree line. The bark is blasted off the trees next to him by the bullets of a gun, and he runs and runs on, into the stippling encompassing darkness of the black woods.

 Humvees smash through the fence, followed men on motorbikes and running men. They are heavily armed to the teeth and ready to hunt long into the night.

 Kaneki tries to ignore his sister’s screams as he runs. He can hear his own blood rushing tempestuously in his ears like a river.  He scrambles up in the crook of a huge branch running parallel to the ground, blood rushing hard and fast in his ears as he peers down behind a curtain of leaves. He wishes that the air didn't seem as thick as he watches a group of soldiers on motorcycles roll by his previous position.

He bites down savagely on his lower lip, his mind feels a little hazy and slightly disorientated 

Kaneki tenses as he hears footsteps reverberate on the hard earth. He strains his ears to listen for how many: if it’s a small entourage he's in big trouble, but someone by themselves, he can handle. For a moment, the footsteps dwindle and then stop, before the run off in the opposite direction.

He breathes out and leaps from the tree, and hits the ground running. He's feeling unpredictable, sudden, shakeable, light and dizzy all at once as he sprints. Sprints like he's going to fly, down the slope, across the grass. He wants to run fast, he wants to move so fast his feet will leave the ground and he'll be running through nothing but thin air.

His tears glisten on the wind as he runs. Thunder rolls and crashes overhead as rain begins to fall from the heavens.

 _If, for argument's sake, you were to write a_ _story with me in the lead role…_

_It would certainly be a tragedy._


	2. The Fox and The Hound

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone, sorry for the long wait on this chapter!
> 
> Those who are following me on Tumblr know of the fate that has befallen my laptop.  
> For those who don't, my laptop broke down and I couldn't recover most of my files.  
> My fanfiction and many plotlines for future chapters were also erased.  
> I saved what I could of this chapter and tried to make it the same as before... but eh.
> 
> This affiliation with No.6 ends after this chapter. 
> 
> Thank you for reading :)
> 
> This is un-beta'd

_If an angelic being fell from the sky and tried_ _to live in this world of ours, I think even they would commit many wrongs…I wonder what colours their purity will be dyed._

_*   *   *_

The light that flows in from the window is a hazy moonlight that ebbs between the darkened clouds that suffocate the sky. It falls on tiled floors, dripping through curtains and glass _._ A wind chime whirls around trapped in the midst of a strong breeze. Its silvery pieces of polished metal flashing against the cobalt sky, where streaks of lightning strike veins into the surface.

A sudden gust of wind blows, racing through the grass blades until it bursts over the top like crashing thunder causing the treetops to shiver. It started to rain. An icy, torrential downpour that sliced like a waterfall over the grass, turning dust into mud puddles and filling ditches with dirty water.

Hide takes a deep breath, absorbing the smells of damp earth into his lungs. The wind chime spins round and round, the light glittering from its shiny surface like a signal from a lighthouse to a sailor lost at sea.

A haze sweeps over him like a slow seeping poison, invisible to the naked eye, which calls him and beckons him outside – out into the torrid rain that falls off the flora in crystalline drops.  In his room, the atmosphere is mechanically controlled, the humidity and temperature levels carefully moderated to remain stable, and unchanged.   The air feels warm in an oddly comforting sense and dry, the exact opposite to the hurricane that’s whirling outside.

_Unbound and wild._

His room is sheltering him from the downpour; the glass doors opened wide as the crisp linen curtains whips and curls in the breeze. Feeling a little adventurous, Hide steps out onto the wooden slatted balcony outside his room. He's getting soaked through to the skin, his blonde hair slipping into his eyes as fat droplets roll down it, plastering them to his skull.

Hide looks to the soaring sky as a thousand sparks expanded in the distance, claiming the horizon, singing the blue sky a sickly grey. For a moment, time stood still.  The lightning snaps a molten silver and fades away, the ripples it created receding and returning to its point as if the entire scene rewound, leaving a sense of emptiness in its departure.

His school tie and jacket lie crumpled up on the ground beside him, his shirt covered with ink blotches at the sleeves. He drops his coat on the ground, shrugging it off his shoulders so it hangs by his elbows and then slipping off his forearms before his kicks it away from him as it falls to his feet.

 _Is this what it feels like to be_ _free?_

The metal band attached to his wrist glints a neon green in the darkness, as words flash across the screen embedded in the metal that reads: **_Compulsory Study Period from 1800 to 1900. Nagachika Hideyoshi, Rank #1, CCG cadet._**

Hide childishly pokes his tongue at the device and jumps over the balcony edge and into a puddle. The mud sucks at his bare feet and with childish delight he jumps into another pool, enjoying the icy cold sensation between his toes.

Mud stains the bottom of his rudimentary school pants, and he rolls the hems up to his knees, giggling at the sense of rebelliousness flooding his veins. Hide throws his head back, the smooth column of his neck exposed to the night, as he opens his mouth wide to gather rain on the tip of his tongue. He laughs loudly at the sensation and begins to spin in circles.

_If my superiors saw me now._

“Cadet Nagachika,” he openly mocks, his expression stern and Hide lowers his voice a few octaves, “Our most promising trainee does not frolic through puddles. Instead, you must become a First Class grumpy old bastard with a stick up your ass.”

A loud clap of thunder roars, and Hide yells at the top of his lungs until his voice feels hoarse, “I fucking hate the CCG!”

The metal on his wrist begins to vibrate, and Hide sighs dramatically, as he watches the loading screen morph from his CCG inflicted schedule to a warning notification. Curiously he flicks the e-mail open and divulges into its content: Level One Security Breach: all citizens return to their home. Scanning is required.

“Level One, huh?” he ponders. The raindrops travel down the contours of his calves as he turns towards his house, “What’s a low-ranked ghoul doing inside The Ward?”

He stops in his thoughts and twists his torso around to observe the west wall of the 20th ward. The compressed, towering quinque reinforced steel glints through the rain as it pylons for what seems like an eternity towards the heavens. On the top of the shield, curving outwards like the petal of the lotus flower, are sharp barbs that burn a beautiful swirling reddish-purple into the skyline.

_The citizens of 20 th Ward wouldn’t think it was beautiful if they knew how it was made._

The 20th Ward was mankind’s latest victory against the plague called Ghouls. Terrifying, monstrous creatures that feast on the flesh of humans, teeth gnashing, mouths twisted into glee as they relish in the bloodlust they cause, their genomes slaves to the hunt. The Wards protected humans from the monsters, with high, impenetrable walls – creating an everlasting era of peace and prosperity.

The 20th Ward is separated into four factions; East, West, North and South. Most of the East and South blocks were for farmland or grazing pastures, which provided genetically modified food scientifically enriched with vitamins and minerals, ensuring optimum health and vitality.  In the north, there was an expanse of buildings dedicated to the CCG – the Commission of Counter Ghoul, Man-Kinds second defence against Ghouls if the walls were to be breached. The West was where most of the citizens lived, their lives separated by classist means to keep the elite and working class separate. 

A sound of a falling tree fills the air as well as the vague notion of rocks falling and colliding. The earth begins to tremor slightly as the lotus petals on the walls start to close, forming a spiked fence. The man made pond beneath his feet rippled causing small waves to crash harshly, frogs leaping away from the lily pads and seeking shelter. The trees in the yard bowed under the force of the winds, leaves and spindling limbs torn off by the ferociousness of the onslaught.

There was something under the surface trying to break out and there, to the right, the rocks have been disturbed, like someone is forcing them to move underneath. A rock slides off a pile and hits the ground and then the sky snaps once more.

In the distance through the rain, Hide squints his eyes as he sees a figure stumble through the garden, limbs limp before falling to mud like a bird shot from the sky, and Hide runs.

There is a sudden spiral of air as he slides halfway down the slope and mud splashes across the black of his school pants. He's beyond caring though, he's flushed, he's breathing, the adrenaline washes over his senses

There's someone lying in the foetal position beneath a maple tree; the leaves plastered to their skin like a wet golden blanket. Hide could taste the air here, a sugary smell from the artificially rendered trees. Normally it would be a mixture of chemicals, metals, nature and oxygen; however, he concluded without uncertainty; the atmosphere was being strangled with the iron of blood

The rust is so high, and he wrinkles his nose in distaste and hides it behind his left wrist. Edging slowly, inch by inch towards the fallen person, hungrily curious.

“Hey! Hey! Are you alright?” 

The figure is tiny, skin stretched across bones and lithe muscles, long legs, slender arms and like a fallen angel neck bent, so his chin touches his chest and eyes closed. His hair a mixture of black, and some sort of silvery colour, almost if the strands were waging a war of dominance on his skull.

Frowning, and hairs prickling at the back of his neck, Hide presses forwards, licking his lips, feeling so apprehensive as he slowly kneels down. Absently he moves his fingers to brush the dark strands of hair away from the person’s forehead, tentatively eyeing the blood that’s splattered across his face in an angry patchwork.

The mist and rain combined turns the atmosphere to an icy chill. Misty vapour can be seen from his panting mouth as he tries to move the head so it's at a less jarring angle from the rest of his body, fingers skimming the jaw line. The person's flesh is cold, and it feels sickly under his fingertips, almost as if he’s covered in slime.  The seconds tick away like hours as he waits for it, and there it is, beating softly is a pulse.

Hide moves through the standard procedure, checking the body for wounds and broken bones.  He pushes the person’s body to lay on the side, so they don’t choke on their tongue, clearing his airways from the onslaught of rain. A blackish mixture falls from the person's mouth and Hide is perplexed but relieved they can breathe properly once more.

Hide notes the hospital gown, torn and muddy and faintly covering a bandaged body.  Hide looks to his wristband. He checks to see if the alert list Level One Security Breach is active and flashing, there’s nothing on the alert list about a hospital escapee. Which is odd, especially since there’s a ghoul on the loose. Hide unbuttons his school shirt and wraps the wet material around the person for faux modesty.

There’s something strange about the blood formation on the person's skin; it’s splattered, like it’s been sprayed on, a pulpy mess pushed through a sieve and left to drip dry over a white canvas.

There's a slight pause. Hide’s heart begins to beat faster and faster inside his chest, veins dilating as blood rushes frantically about his body in all directions. Hide curses and slowly starts to regain his composure.

_The blood on the person's face and clothes aren't theirs._

Hide falls forwards onto his knees, all the blood seemingly gushing from his ears, biting down hard on his tongue.

_Were you a victim of the ghoul? Are they near?_

His knees are shaking, but he can look after himself, he's more than capable of it. He’s been in the CCG academy since he was five years old. He should be okay.

He can code an alarm from his wristband if need be and alert the CCG about any suspicious activity. He eyes the person’s lack of wounds once more and focuses on the blood.

“You look like you’ve been in the wars,” Hide licks his lip, tasting the rain and salt mixture on his tongue, “I’ll call the hospital and –“

He never got to finish his question. The moment to words began to fall from his lips the person's eyes snapped open, a beautiful smoky colour that bleeds into a startling crimson red amongst an abyss of black.

_A one-eyed ghoul?_

Someone must have started it first because these things don't ever happen by themselves. Perhaps what they both won't acknowledge is that they both moved in at the same time.

The ghoul tries to drive their foot through Hide's skull- but Hide will have none of it, shaking the sparks of distorted light from his mind and using them to increase his determination.

 His upper torso contracts and dodges the limb, blocking as the ghoul effortlessly shifts the equilibrium, using muscular forearms to balance on powerful hands. His second foot swings towards Hide's temple- in slow motion, the image is insane: a whole body propelling contorted torso and legs in a circular motion.

Hide’s face is grazed and he has to bend his spine forcibly in a way he knows it isn't actually supposed to go

Even trapped inside the fuel of the fight, Hide cannot help but be fascinated by his opponent's gliding and subtle style. His movement is alluring, speed morphing him into deadly silent shadows, fluid as water and twice as high, he cuts through space like a knife, brutally efficient and to a dangerous point.

Hide glides across the fact that he couldn't stand the thought of the ghoul breaking open his skull and spilling his brains across his clean varnished oak wood steps.

The ghoul turns towards him, and just like that his expression is suddenly confrontational, fingers splayed open on the edge of his elegant hands, challenging and daring Hide to take him right there and now.

The tip of his white teeth biting his lips, tempting, teasing and laughing at Hide's meandering hesitation.

There's some silent agreement passing between them that they both understand, something that's not spoken with words but with a fleeting glance. A slight curl of the mouth that sends Hide running towards the ghoul to bring him down in a full body tackle.

The Ghoul dodges it quickly, turning to the side and sticking his foot out, sending Hide tumbling to the ground in a colourful heap.

Hide lies there for a moment, his mouth full of swear words and the bitter taste of earth and grit lining the back of his tongue.

The Ghoul launches at him with the fluid movements of a feline, strong hands pinning Hide’s forearm to the muddied earth before teeth latch _,_ _clamping down on the metal wristband, scraping the fair skin underneath._

_He can feel teeth again against the place where his pulse beats against the metal. Sharp canines in a human mouth, bruising as they rake painfully over the tender skin that resides there, tongue sucking the slight blood spill the teeth leave, greedily, until there isn't enough blood left and in hunger  bites down._

_Down into his flesh, tearing skin, and he screams._

Then comes the pain, hot and blinding, so sudden that he passes out. Blistering bubbles are exploding inside his ears and across his tongue, tapping on his teeth.

He wakes up only to cough. Clearing the water out of his lung that travels up his throat and he chokes on it. His lungs are wracking as his stomach heaves aggressively from his abdomen, eyes streaming salted tears.

His wrist is missing a chunk of flesh, blood pooling and swirling in the wound that overflows on the grass and blending in the fertility of the earth. His wristband is lying next to his palm in pieces, the numbers flickering on and off like a candle in the wind.

He turns his head away from it, fingers raking into the ground beneath him. It's not long before he's up again, circling the ghoul and wiping the blood from his bottom lip with the back of his hand while the Ghoul stands there blank faced.

_He could have killed me, but he didn’t._

_Why didn’t you kill me?_

This time when the ghoul comes towards him he doesn't make to get out of the way, they both go down, kicking and rolling, bodies twisting against each other hot and raging

It might have been the ghoul who slipped first, but it could have just as easily been him. The earth tumbles and slips away, and they go rolling in a dizzying spell. It's painful, and it's certainly uncomfortable, especially when they hit the pond.

He draws away, trying to break free, filled with a flood of self-awareness and sudden ineptitude that makes him want to shrink into the ground.   The ghoul flips him aggressively onto his back, and suddenly he's staring straight into the stormy sky.

It makes the ghoul laugh, without amusement, laugh at the pit in his stomach, the thing clawing at his chest, hot, livid but so very much alive.

The flash of lightening overhead startles them, and the deafening roar of thunder that accompanies it vibrates long and hard in Hide's rib cage. They both stop, both look at each other.

_He hasn’t killed me yet_

There are rocks here, poking out jagged and brittle from the dirty water, swirls of blood go trickling down the little river. The rain still pours down.

They are both soaked to the skin, and it's slightly ridiculous, more than a little as they both move towards the rocks.

He's still lying on the ground, crushed grass beneath his blonde hair, so wet it's almost brown. His eyes reflect the silver in the lightening streaks and he hardly hears the thunder over the erratic beating of his heart.

"Please," Hide pleads and felt his stomach tighten at the smallness of his voice, "let’s go inside… we’ll catch pneumonia."

The sound drifted around the garden, over the sound of the pouring rain as it pattered noisily onto the wet mud, dribbling between pebbles running tumultuously into small rivulets to collect in puddles.

The Ghoul looked at him, crimson eyes fading into polished grey, feathery eyelashes clumped. His hair streaked with rain as he shivered, eyes rolling into the back of his skull and he falls limply into a puddle.

_Oh god, he’s unconscious._

The sky is just getting darker, and the cicadas are chirping loudly as Hide announces to the frigid air, “Seriously?”

There is no response.

Not that he expected one.

For a brief moment, Hide thinks about how  _highly_  uncomfortable this all is, with the ghoul’s hip jutting into his lower abdomen. A slightly bloody strand of hair hangs across Hide’s eyes, and the tang of blood ebbs slightly in his mouth. He can smell the ghoul’s hair, and his skin: a metallic chemical smell fighting against the aroma of dirt.

Hide twist and rolls, throwing off the dead weight so that the ghoul slides onto his back. His eyes remain closed, his breathing somewhat laboured and ragged. Licking his lips, Hide gets to his knees and stretches out his hand, brushing against the ghoul’s forehead, and then recoils like he's been stung.

_He has a fever._

Hide glares at the ghoul like he’s done it on purpose.

Hide rocks back onto his haunches and considers. Does he alert the CCG and leave the ghoul here? He really is perfectly defenceless in this position, unconscious, probably dehydrated, starving and running a temperature that could melt plastic.

_How is this a good idea?_

He leans down now and shakes the ghoul by the shoulders, figuring it can't be good that he's passed out. The ghoul just lies limp and placid, like a sack of wet noodles, bones seemingly disappeared leaving a fleshy mess behind.  He hoists the ghoul up, ignoring the pain in his wrist, and begins dragging him across the mud and puddles.

Hide bravely pushes down the panic that's swelling up inside as they approach the stairs. He staggers slightly under the weight, and he eases him gently up the stairs, or as gently as can be humanely managed.  Especially when Hide slips at one point and the pressure causes him to impale his stomach on the bannister. The ghoul slides out of his grip and almost falls all the back way down the stairs again.

“Sorry! Sorry! Sorry!”

He manages to make it up the stairs, dragging and hauling the ghoul across the bedroom. He tosses him with glorious relief onto the bed, stretching out his shoulders and working out the kinks in his neck that seemed to have formed there.  The mattress creaks, the springs sagging and bouncing with the broader weight, and Hide looks critically at the ghoul who does nothing more than lie there breathing shallow.

Little rapid breaths and eyebrows clenched together as if in pain.

_What do I do with you then, huh?_

First things first, he can't sleep in those clothes.

"Hey Ghouly Ghoul," Hide announces, "I'm going to need you to take off your clothes for me."

Hide throws a blanket over the ghoul and frantically runs his hands through his hair as stress takes over his nerves.

 _This is_ _a dangerous idea._

There was a mechanical warning sound. A reverberating siren that was notifying the residents that the atmospheric conditions in the room had deteriorated. The window clicked shut and locked automatically, stilling the air. Dehumidification and temperature control began to take effect, flooding the room with sporadic, drying heat waves that stripped moisture from their clothes and skin.

The intercom began to flash crazily, red lights blinking like demon eyes into the room. Across the intercom that resembles a flat screen television that is, by law, not allowed to switch off has the words INFRINGEMENT NOTICE streaming across its surface.

_Shit, Shit, Shit._

Hide runs across the room, nearly knocking furniture over and decapitating his knee in his haste. Frantically he punches in the override code, his citizenship registration, a ten digit code that has been inked into his forearm since infancy. His fingers are gliding over the touch screen with quick precise movements, the pain in his wrist pulses dully.

“Cadet Nagachika, Rank #1, CCG Cadet, you are in violation of Code Seven of CCG Cadet Academy Manifesto. Report back immediately for punishment.” 

Hide bites his tongue to stop himself to release a barrage of curses at the robotic voice that’s vibrating through the intercom, “Cadet Nagachika responding regarding an infringement notice. Sorry for the delayed response.”

“Nagachika Hideyoshi, Rank #1, CCG cadet. You have failed to complete ** _Compulsory Study Period from 1800 to 1900._** This is your first infringement. Regulation declares that punishment is twenty-two hours of community service. Mandatory punishment starts Monday at 0600 hours.”

“I apologise for the infringement,” Hide freezes suddenly as he feels something begin to coil around his neck, slithering and sliding like a snake, “My Study Period was delayed by the Level One Warning notification. I prioritised the safety of my house over my education, subsection seven of Safety Policies.”

“Your neighbourhood has already been secured, courtesy of the Dove protection programme, rendering your safety check obsolete. The West Wing cannot be breached due to its maximum security classification.” The robotic voice countered.

Hide smiled sarcastically as more snake-like appendages from the Ghouls Kagune slithered around his wrist and ankle, “Of Course, A Ghoul cannot possibly infiltrate the CCG residency.”

“Goodnight Cadet Nagachika.” The metallic voice pardons, before fading into the background.

The intercoms screen changes to an array of peaceful images of The Wards that circulate on a never-ending loop, soft music accompanying them. It’s a great propaganda scheme to help everyone feel at ease and secure behind the metal monstrosities that surround the city. Quite frankly, it grates on Hide’s nerves and leaves a rotten taste in his mouth.

Hide nervously turns around the face the ghoul, the heels of his feet make rough, grating sounds against the grain of the carpet. The sound awkwardly fills the silence of the room, causing Hide to flinch internally in embarrassment. He raises his arms in surrender, palms raised high and facing outwards, fingers slightly curled.

The Ghoul allows his eyes to skim across Hide's collarbone, following the contours with his sharp gaze, analysing and assessing him. The Ghoul’s eyes lock onto his identification code, stained red with coagulated blood from the wound that resides on Hide’s wrist, the flesh now resembling the shiny rosy shade of scar tissue.

Hide follows the ghouls gaze to his wrist, eyeing the pulp of his new scar and grins sardonically, “You took a chunk right out of me. The new stimulants the CGG is pumping into us sure work well, look, it’s nearly all healed up!”

Hide releases a sound from the back of his throat, resembling a mocking scoff, which turns into a yelp of surprise when The Ghoul begins to approach him, invading Hide’s personal space, wounding the tentacles in a fierce embrace. With frosty hands, The Ghoul pulls the arm with the identification code towards the ground, resting the limb about waist height, fingers digging into the flesh of Hide’s forearm so tightly the skin goes white under the pressure.

_Oh god I’m going to die._

Slowly, and even gently, Hide would surmise, the ghoul traces nimble fingers delicately over the characters burnt into Hide’s skin, eyes wide with wonder and familiarity.

“That’s my identification code, or citizenship number,” Hide says, and the kagune around his ankle retreats, dissipating into crimson mist in the still air, “It has all the necessary information the authority needs to know about me; Name, Status, Sector; you name it.”

Hide is pulled roughly forward by his arm, close and personal, more personal than he has ever been with another person. He can see the powdery blue veins residing underneath the ghoul’s molten marble complexion, and the silverly shards of colour deeply imbedded in the irises.

“Same.” The Ghoul enunciates, almost as if he’s not used to speaking, and it snaps Hide back in focus, “We are the same.”

The Ghoul gestures excitedly with a tilt of his head towards Hide’s arm, a small, fragile smile placed delicately on his lip. That’s when Hide notices the ghoul is comparing their arms. Inked against the stark white of his skin, although with the colour red instead of black, is a classification code. Hide furrows his brow and looks at the ghouls code, perplexed.

“It says Ken,” Hide says out loud, tracing the characters so they burn into his memory, “Ah, it says you’re part of the CCG’s Quinx division…. I thought that was shut down years ago… Chimera?”

Ken slams Hide against the wall, kakugan flashing wildly, his face twisted into an expression of unbridled fury. It remind hide of waves crashing against rocks in a summer storm, splitting apart the rough stones and sucking sand from the shore to a watery demise.

“I am not Chimera! I am Kaneki!” Kaneki snarls, teeth bared and dangerous, “Sister said I am Kaneki, it means golden tree. **_I am not Chimera anymore_**!”

“I’m sorry,” Hide gasps, fighting against the kagune that’s tightening around his neck, fingernails gripping into the muscle, “I didn’t mean to upset you!”

“I’m Kaneki!” The Ghouls bites out venomously once more, locking eyes with Hide’s own, “I’m not Chimera anymore.”

Hide is begging to feel his lungs starve of oxygen, the soft muscle flexing rapidly in his ribcage and the blood begins to rise to the surface of his face, flushing his skin.

“I’m sorry Kaneki,” Hide forces out, “I’m sorry Kaneki, please, you’re hurting me!”

Kaneki has eyes the colour of the sky above them. Looking into them is like being drawn towards a magnet, almost as if the very irises are analysing your soul. The eyes were unblinking.

Their gaze still fixed on Hide’s eyes, and he watched in near awe as they grew calm like the gentle surface of the ocean. The colour of menace, fear or murderous intent from them fading like a wisp of the wind through the trees, leaving behind unbelievably kind eyes.

"I would really like it,” Hide announces, biting his lower lip in trepidation, “If you were to let me go."

Hide could see himself reflected in the ghouls eyes, being drawn into them. He averted his gaze and looked down.

“Please let me go?”

The grip around his neck loosened slightly.

Slowly Hide lets himself slide to his knees, cold fingers pressed over the hot sockets of his eyes. He has to get a grip, he has to think and think clearly, and Hide slowly traces his fingers against the kagune around his neck.

“I promise not to hurt you. Not ever again, okay?” Hide pleads, fingers dancing across the rippled surface of the kagune, “I’ll turn the security system off. You’ll be safe here tonight. I’ll give you change of clothes as well. Just, please, let me go?”

"Don't move," Kaneki demands, slowly uncoiling the muscle like vines from around Hide’s limbs, retreating back into his lower back, cells crumbling like sand, “They will hurt you if you move.”

“I think we got off on the wrong foot,” Hide shrug his shoulders, and stretches his sore muscles, “I am Hideyoshi, but call me Hide for short. Its nice to meet you.”

Kaneki stares at him for a moment, determined, steady gaze but not without his fair share of guilt. He drops Hide’s wrists as if they have scolded his pale skin and looked at the floor. Platinum hair shields his face so Hide can't read the expression.

“May I have the clothes now?” Kaneki fires rapidly, eyes searching the floor of Hide’s room, analysing everything, “Also, can you teach me to read my arm? I want know what it says. All of it.”

Hide tilts his head at the odd questions and as he gathers his composure, he dimly tries to make sense of it all. Using his elbows for support, he slowly murmurs from a mouth that feels hot and raw, “I can teach you to read the code, but I’ll get you clothes first. Do you want to sleep here tonight?”

Kaneki looks at him with very dark, impenetrable eyes, face moody and pale.

"Okay." He answered very quietly.

Hide realised as he was gathering clothes and books for Kaneki that he might have gotten himself into a bit of trouble. Teaching him to read though, was easier than Hide thought, and Kaneki made an excellent student, soaking up the words and characters with childish delight and fervour.

Hide's tongue is stuck to the roof of his mouth, as he reattaches his wrist band to the skin of his completely healed wound. He lets of a cry of triumph when the machine beeps and reboots, the mechanism automatically starting to repair itself infront of his eyes, steal folding over exposed wire.

“You have to love technology, hey Kaneki!” Hide grins, twsiting his wrist around in the air so the green lights flicker all over the wall in an abstract pattern.

Kaneki is avoiding all eye contact; staring moodily and silently at a particular word on the page while the moonlight casts dark blue over his collarbones.

“Hey, cheer up already,” Hide teases, “Theres no harm done at all, so don’t look so guilty, alright?”

It was awkward on the bed, springs poked into joints as they squirmed around for a better position on a small mattress only made for one. Hide hissed and cursed a couple of times when Kaneki’s knee, elbow or leg ended up in a place where it was not supposed to be.

“Can I actually sleep here?” Kaneki asks, voice small and fragile.

“Mm,” Hide hums, discreetly scanning the characters on Kaneki’s arm into the database of his wristband for further study. He is impeccably sure the Quinx division was destroyed, yet evidence it wasn’t was laying in bed next to him, reading one of his mothers novels about an insect man.

“Are you sure?”

Hide smiles wide and bright, grasping Kaneki’s fingers and intertwining them, “Yes. Come on, it's sleepy time now, so close your eyes and think of happy things.”

They both look away simultaneously in opposite directions, both horribly aware that something rare and mysterious has just occurred. Kaneki flips another page of the book he’s reading.

Hide takes a deep breath and wiggles his toes, "Don’t stay up too late reading okay? I don’t want you to turn into a bookworm.”

He can't help the quick burst of laughter that bubbles from his lips at Kaneki’s incredulous expression.

“Hide, how does one turn into a worm? Hide, I don’t understand! Hide!”

_*   *   *_

Hide awoke next morning to the wind ruffling through his hair from the open window. He glances around the room, heart beating wildly in his chest, and that’s when he notices Kaneki is gone. The books he was reading last night were missing as well.

A sharp rap on the door filled Hide with dread.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please tell me what you think! :)
> 
> http://nironwrites.tumblr.com/ ;D


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